The Wolverine

This site bills itself as a “memory project for comics geeks,” and is home to essays about how individual comics experiences influenced or changed people’s lives.

My own article is about the deeply conflicted feelings I still harbor about my twelve-year-old self cutting up my copy of Hulk #181, which happened to feature the first full appearance of Wolverine (who coincidentally appeared at the movies this weekend).

To an extent, everything about comics is accidental. Their collector and cultural value — accidental. The rich history of their fictional universes — accidental. The deep hold they have on aging geeks like me — accidental. These stories were the product of word-for-hire freelancers trying to make their monthly check, but over time they added up to so much more, and it is the accidental (or maybe, more properly, “heartfelt”) nature of these works that lends them an authenticity that the more calculated productions of more recent eras cannot match.

But, damn, it was no accident that I cut up my copy of Hulk #181, and I still wish I hadn’t done it!

At first, I thought you were thanking yourself in some weird, meta third-person experimentation. A small dose of your #181 pains transferred to me when I read that story. I think you’ve mentioned it before, and it makes me a little dizzy every time. I’m so so so so so sorry.

Yeah, I covered similar territory in a podcast last year. It is an ongoing process. (And a multimedia one!)

Now I’m on the cusp between restoring/clam-shelling my copy of #181, and going whole-hog and cutting the entire book up for decoupage or buttons. I wonder if I could sell authentic pieces of the book on eBay, like parts of Babe Ruth’s jersey, or something …?

Now THAT is a wonderful idea. I just put a blade to some of my books last week to make a collage of the American flag, and within minutes of posting an image online, I sold it for way more than the comics were ever worth. (Among the books were Uncanny X-Men 424, House of M: Fantastic Four 1, a ThunderCats book, and some crap from this year’s FCBD.)